Sig Christenson is a veteran military reporter who has made nine trips to the war zone. He writes regularly for Hearst about service members, veterans and heroes, among other topics. He is also the co-founder and former president of Military Reporters and Editors, founded in 2002.

April 2013

04/28/2013

A former Air Force instructor was given five months in jail and a
bad-conduct discharge Thursday after pleading guilty to having sex with a
woman in basic training and making recruits in his training flight ill.

The recruits coughed, became dizzy and had watery eyes after Staff Sgt. Robert Hudson dumped two gallons of bleach into a latrine he said smelled like urine.

One recruit collapsed, another suffered a bloody nose and a third
fell into a spasm as he tried to vomit. Blood vessels in his eyes burst.

“I threw up at one point and just swallowed it back down,” the former recruit, Airman 1st Class Roman Arturo Chavez Jr told the court.

Hudson, who had asked the judge for mercy, was stunned at the sentence, shaking his head and taking deep breaths.

The 18th instructor to go on trial and 17th to be convicted, Hudson
struck a plea bargain, saying he was guilty of six charges and 14
specifications. He pleaded not guilty to assault consummated by battery,
but prosecutors dropped those charges.

Hudson, who is among 33 basic training instructors investigated for
misconduct with 63 recruits and technical training students at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, tearfully told the judge deciding his fate that he'd erred.

Still, he asked the judge, Col. Donald Eller Jr., that he be spared a bad-conduct discharge so he could provide for his family.

“What Sgt. Hudson needs is a quick dip in the lake,” said his lawyer, Maj. Willie Babor. “If you are going to give Sgt. Hudson confinement, think of it as a matter of days.”

04/25/2013

A former Air Force basic training instructor who faced up to 33 years
in prison for abusing recruits was sentenced Wednesday to six months in
jail and a reduction in rank by a single stripe.

Tech. Sgt. Bobby Bass was convicted Tuesday on multiple counts of misconduct with recruits four years ago at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. He was acquitted by the jury of two officers and four NCOs of a rape charge involving an airman while in Kyrgyzstan.

The charges included abusive sexual contact, assault consummated by
battery, maltreatment, dereliction of duty and violating a regulation
prohibiting unprofessional relationships with recruits. In at least two
cases, he shared alcohol with airmen, including recruits.

He was accused of making two recruits rub a muscle cream on their
private parts, ordering more than a dozen others to stand naked against a
wall, and kicking two recruits.

Bass faced more allegations than anyone so far accused in the
Lackland scandal, where 33 instructors have been investigated in
connection with misconduct with 63 recruits and technical school
students.

“That's amazing,” retired Lt. Col. Geoffrey Corn,
a veteran Army attorney and professor at South Texas College of Law in
Houston, said of the six-month sentence. “I don't know. I don't know how
to explain it.”

Once spared from life imprisonment on the rape charge, Bass still
could have spent decades in prison. But retired Air Force Col. Morris Davis
cautioned that jail time often skyrockets when there are many
allegations. Someone writing three $500 hot checks could risk 15 years
in prison, he said.

“Some of my clients would come in and say, 'How much am I facing?'
and I said 143 years,” said Davis, a professor at Howard University
School of Law who led the Air Force's judiciary. “Once they regained
consciousness, then you'd talk about what a realistic sentence was,
which was often a fraction of the potential maximum.”

A former Air Force instructor pleaded guilty today to having sex with
a recruit in basic training and also sickening airmen in a boot camp
flight he led after pouring two gallons of bleach in a latrine.

Trainees in Staff Sgt. Robert Hudson's
flight grew dizzy, coughed and got watery eyes after he dumped the
bleach into toilets and onto the floor, complaining that the latrine
smelled like urine.

One of the recruits collapsed and had to be
dragged away by two airmen, and another became so ill he tried to vomit
but could not, causing blood vessels in his eyes to burst.

“I should have pulled them out of that situation,” Hudson, a veteran basic training instructor, told Col. Donald Eller Jr., the military judge.

One of 33 basic training instructors so far investigated for misconduct with 63 recruits and technical training students at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland,
he is being prosecuted for having sex with a trainee, as well as
adultery. But unlike many of those instructors, Hudson also was charged
with abusing trainees under his command.

There was no explanation
for why he abused them throughout a long morning of questioning by
Eller, who is required to ensure that Hudson understands the plea
agreement struck with the prosecution.

The 17th instructor to go
on trial, Hudson admitted to rebuking the trainees as they choked on
bleach fumes, using a pejorative phrase to describe them as weak. He
even ordered some of the trainees to re-enter the latrine a second time,
after telling them to put T-shirts over their faces.

The judge
asked if he had training in dealing with hazardous materials. Hudson, an
F-15 mechanic after joining the Air Force 12 years ago, conceded he did
not.

But that didn't stop him from trying to force the recruits
to continue cleaning up the bleach. He used a fan to disperse the fumes,
and trained a water hose on the latrine as well.

Some of the
trainees were given medical treatment after the incident, and one posted
a subpar time on his next physical training run.

04/23/2013

A former Air Force basic training instructor was found guilty Tuesday
of abusing recruits four years ago at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland,
but he was acquitted of raping an airman during a stint overseas.

Tech. Sgt. Bobby Bass,
who is on trial at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Miss., faces as much as 33
years in prison, but prosecutors sought just 24 months' confinement.

Witnesses took the stand to recount how he treated them, with one saying boot camp had destroyed his career.

“He said that 'these incidents broke what I believed would happen and who I would become,'” said Col. Polly Kenny, a top lawyer with the 2nd Air Force in Biloxi.

The
rape allegation was the most serious charge faced by Bass, who was an
instructor at Lackland before and after a deployment to Kyrgyzstan.
Kenny said jurors could have found him guilty of a lesser offense
stemming from the incident at Manas Air Base, but did not. They did,
however, decide that Bass had an unprofessional relationship with the
airman, who said they shared alcohol before the alleged sexual assault.

One
of 33 instructors accused of misconduct with 63 recruits and technical
school trainees at Lackland since 2008, Bass was found guilty of a long
list of charges alleging he abused recruits in a flight he led from Aug.
1-Oct. 31, 2009.

Jurors weighed punishment for about 80 minutes
before breaking for the day. As they return to court this morning, the
panel of two officers and six NCOs will consider a defense plea to give
Bass hard labor.

“They asked for mercy for the family,” Kenny
said, noting that the defense said confinement “should be measured in
days, not months or years,” if ordered.

04/22/2013

The budget sequester took the fireworks out of Joint Base San
Antonio-Fort Sam Houston's Fiesta celebration Sunday night, but that did
nothing to dampen the event's festive spirit.

Hundreds of soldiers, families and friends converged on the post's
historic Quadrangle late in the afternoon, many of them civilians
wearing rows of shiny Fiesta medals.

The 323rd Army Band
performed patriotic tunes as Fort Sam made the best of its most
strained fiscal year in memory, and the crowd was treated to the U.S. Army Soldier Show, a troupe of 22 GIs who put on a musical called “Ready and Resilient” — a fitting theme for Fiesta 2013.

“We didn't have the carnival, we weren't going to have the fireworks,
we weren't going to have a large extravaganza of food and drink, but it
was all about being together,” said Lt. Gen. William Caldwell IV, commander of U.S. Army North.

The Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard
and Marines will contribute to Fiesta celebrations throughout the week,
despite the spending cutbacks imposed on federal activities thanks to
sequestration.

Larry Benson Sr., Rey Feo LXV, mingled with a crowd that drifted toward Caldwell, Gen. Edward Rice Jr., head of the Air Force's training command, and many other troops .

“To tell you we've noticed it, not really, except for a couple of
things, obviously, the fireworks and the flyovers at Randolph,” Benson,
67, of Shavano Park said.

Joint Base San Antonio, which oversees Fort Sam and two other
installations here, opted to scratch the fireworks show and carnival
because of overtime costs for civil service workers.

A military jury spent four hours Monday weighing the fate of a former
Air Force basic training instructor accused of raping one airman and
abusing recruits under his command.

Jurors broke for the day after poring over seven charges and 34 specifications against Tech. Sgt. Bobby Bass, who could receive life if convicted of sexually assaulting the airman.

Bass also faces 32 years on charges of abusing 19 other airmen at
Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland four years ago. No other instructor in
the Lackland boot camp scandal has been charged with so many offenses or
faced such a lengthy potential prison sentence.

“To my knowledge, it's more charges and specifications than anyone else,” said Col. Polly Kenny, a top lawyer with the 2nd Air Force at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Miss.

Bass is one of 33 Lackland instructors who've fallen under
investigation in the past year for misconduct with 63 victims on the
base, home of Air Force basic training and a technical school hub.

He led the flight Aug. 1-Oct. 31, 2009, and was an instructor before
and after deploying to Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan. The Air Force says
that while in Kyrgyzstan in 2007-08, Bass forcibly sodomized an airman,
identified as Victim 1.Prosecutors and the defense on Monday sketched
vastly different interpretations of what happened in Kyrgyzstan and at
Lackland in their closing arguments.

Kenny said a prosecutor, Capt. Matthew Neil,
told the jury that Bass had failed to lead his flight, saying, “The
role of the (instructor) is to build up an airman, not to tear them
down.”

The defense countered that prosecutors hadn't proven anything beyond a
reasonable doubt, and noted that 32 trainees from the Lackland flight
had not testified.

“They just said he was a drug user and he was not credible, and that
he made the allegations so that he could get benefits,” Kenny said,
referring to the defense's view of Victim 1. Testimony showed the
incident in Kyrgyzstan began when Bass and other airmen went to a base
recreation center and drank beer, and later went to the victim's
quarters, where Bass offered him two cups of liquor.

04/20/2013

A former airman he said he awoke to find a training instructor having
sex with him after a night of drinking on their base in Kyrgyzstan —
and later learned he was positive for the virus that causes AIDS.

A doctor testified Friday that Tech. Sgt. Bobby Bass,
who faces life in prison on charges of sexually assaulting the airman
and abusing 16 other recruits in basic training, is not HIV-positive.

But the airman, identified as Victim 1, said his life unraveled after
the incident and led to his dismissal from the Air Force on drug
charges.

“He says he felt like, in a split second he had two choices: One, he
could go absolutely crazy or two, he could just be quiet, and he chose
to be quiet,” said Col. Polly Kenny, staff judge advocate for the 2nd Air Force in Biloxi, Miss., where Bass is on trial.

Prosecutors and the defense wrapped up their cases Friday without
Bass taking the stand. He is among 33 instructors from Joint Base San
Antonio-Lackland who have fallen under investigation for misconduct with
63 victims on the base.

Bass was a military training instructor at Lackland before deploying
to Kyrgyzstan, and he returned to San Antonio to resume his duties after
his tour. In August 2009, he took charge of an all-male basic training
flight. Most of the allegations against him involve recruits under his
command at Lackland.

The Air Force says he forcibly sodomized Victim 1 between Oct. 22,
2007, and Jan. 31, 2008, at Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan. Kenny said
testimony showed the incident began when Bass and other airmen went to a
base recreation center and drank beer. Troops there were given a ration
of two beers a day.

Bass and some of the airmen later drank liquor in the victim's room.
The victim testified he drank two cups and woke up at 3 a.m. as Bass
finished having sex with him.

“Sgt. Bass leaned and whispered in his ear, 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean
for it to happen that way,' or something to that effect, crawled over
him and left the room,” Kenny said.

04/16/2013

A former Air Force training instructor faces life in prison on
charges of sexually assaulting an airman and abusing 16 other recruits
in basic training after giving bizarre orders to the victims — all men.

Prosecutors say Tech. Sgt. Bobby Bass,
whose trial began Monday at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Miss., made trainees
under his command at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland stand naked
against a latrine wall, sometimes touching each other.

The Air Force said he made recruits perform physical training in a
bathroom and watched as he ordered two of his trainees to rub a muscle
cream on their genitals that increases blood flow.

None of the Lackland victims reported their mistreatment, and years
passed before one airman, who accused Bass of sexual assault, notified
authorities last year.

“I think that we're all concerned there are cases out there, not just
from this incident but what we've discovered from the increased
scrutiny and widening investigative effort that the Air Force has put
into Lackland,” said Col. Polly Kenny, staff judge advocate for the 2nd Air Force in Biloxi.

“Certainly, we're discovering more now than we were and, yes, we are
concerned that there are undetected and unreported offenses that have
occurred or that may have occurred,” she said.

Bass is among 33 Lackland instructors who have fallen under
investigation in what has become the Air Force's worst sex scandal. So
far, investigators have found 63 victims, but they continue to look into
new cases.

04/15/2013

A one-time Air Force basic training instructor went on trial today
facing two dozen allegations of cruelty and mistreating recruits, as
well as sexual assault and forcible sodomy.

The Air Force also lodged two sexual assault charges against Tech. Sgt. Bobby Bass, whose court-martial began this morning at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Miss.

Prosecutors say the sexual assault cases took place at Joint Base San
Antonio-Lackland, home of Air Force basic training, but few details
were available and lawyers for the service couldn't be reached.

So far, at least 14 instructors have gone to trial at Lackland over
the past year in a growing sex scandal involving trainers, recruits in
basic training and technical school students.

The Air Force said today that 33 instructors have fallen under
investigation for illicit contact with 63 recruits and technical school
trainees in cases that go back to 2008.

Bass is accused of 16 specifications of cruelty and maltreatment, two
specifications of wrongful sexual contact and four specifications of
assault while a basic training instructor in 2009.

But there are two other allegations stemming from an overseas
deployment from 2007 to 2008. Those charges include forcible sodomy and
having an unprofessional relationship.

04/12/2013

El PASO — An Army unit at Fort Bliss is poised to deploy a
sophisticated anti-missile system to Guam amid escalating tensions with
North Korea, which is preparing a possible launch of a medium-range
rocket capable of reaching the U.S. territory.

Capt. Cesar Torres,
commander of the battery that will defend the island, said Thursday his
crew trained in the Pacific against the very threat facing Guam and is
“absolutely” confident the system will work.

“This is a historic mission,” he said of the unit's deployment from
Fort Bliss, which until the last base-closure round had been a hub for
rocket research and air defense artillery training.

“We have ready, trained soldiers,” added Torres, 38, of Los Angeles.
“The equipment's ready and the experience that's within the battery is
more than capable of handling any situation that may arise.”

The troops and the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency
say the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, dubbed THAAD, is 10
for 10 in tests, including one test against the kind of rocket that
could reach Guam.

The crew and launch system are expected to fly to the Pacific soon, but the Army wouldn't say exactly when.

THAAD is part of the nation's growing ground-and sea-based
missile-defense network. Each battery, with six truck-mounted launchers,
can fire 48 interceptors. The Pentagon says it has been successfully
tested since 2005.

All three THAAD batteries in the Army's arsenal are at Fort Bliss.
Two of them have been fielded, fully staffed and are operational, Chief
Warrant Officer 4 John Fallin said. The Army plans to eventually field six batteries, with a cost per battery of about $850 million.

Bigger than the Patriot missiles that became famous in the 1991
Persian Gulf War, a THAAD interceptor has a range of about 100 miles and
is designed to take down a medium-range ballistic missile. The
truck-mounted THAAD launchers are mobile and can be quickly flown to hot
spots on C-5 and C-17 cargo planes.

“We're very, very proud of them,” said Maj. Gen. Dana J.H. Pittard,
commander of Fort Bliss, noting “it's the first real-world operation”
for a THAAD battery. “They will be a part of a protective shield for our
country in case of a missile attack from North Korea or wherever.”